The purchase likely buys Apple some fresh talent for Logic and GarageBand.

Apple is reportedly in the process of acquiring a tiny Italian software firm specializing in sample-based instrument creation and editing tools, according to Italian site Fanpage. The acquisition was approved by Italian antitrust regulatory agency AGCM on May 9, which published a bulletin of its recent activities on May 28.

Redmatica makes a number of apps that aid audio engineers and musicians to create sample-based instruments for use in a variety of audio software, including Kontact, Reason, Logic, and GarageBand. Notably, its GBSamplerManager allows editing or creating simple sample-based instruments which can be uploaded into GarageBand for iOS.

AGCM ruled that Apple's acquisition of the tiny firm, which has revenues of less than €1 million, would not adversely affect competition in the digital audio software market. On that basis, the agency declined to investigate the merger further.

Apple often makes acquisitions that don't directly result in new products—at least not immediately—and it's not clear how Redmatica's niche offerings could be repackaged or sold by Apple. We suspect that the acquisition is largely for talent, as well as underlying technology which could be added to Logic or GarageBand.

Apple also likes to buy companies or make exclusive agreements... just to prevent them from working with others.

Liquid Metal? Exclusively Apple in any consumer electronic device... but where are the products?

As killing_time says, there is a Liquid Metal part in the iPhone (the SIM ejector tool). As for an iPhone that uses the material abundantly, most everything I've read says it'll be a few years while they perfect the machinery needed for mass production on the scale of the iPhone.

That being said, it's been a few years since they acquired exclusive rights, so a product could be coming soon. The rumors suggest it, but I stopped paying attention to Apple rumors long ago.

As killing_time says, there is a Liquid Metal part in the iPhone (the SIM ejector tool). As for an iPhone that uses the material abundantly, most everything I've read says it'll be a few years while they perfect the machinery needed for mass production on the scale of the iPhone.

That being said, it's been a few years since they acquired exclusive rights, so a product could be coming soon. The rumors suggest it, but I stopped paying attention to Apple rumors long ago.

I'm quite curious what the end game for the license is. It doesn't seem like a material that could be "productized" quickly. It has some nice properties, but it's a metallic glass. There's basically no existing tooling, experience, etc. for its use. It can't be forged. It needs to have molds, but existing molds probably can't be used. Maybe it can be milled/machined. The primary metallic alloy at this time appears to be a Zr-Ti alloy. Tooling and processes has to be developed for mass production. That sounds expensive to me, in both schedule and budget.

This sounds more like a 5 to 10 year thing rather than a 2 to 3 year thing to me. Maybe they can pour it into slabs, than mill out a shell for unibody Macs, iPads, iPhones or iPods.

Boy I hope this is good news and that Logic 10 will be on the way. Logic 9 while solid could be improved. It takes me back to the old Opcode days where the updates just faded away and then Vision/Studio Vision were gone. I really hope this is a harbinger of further development for Logic. We will have to see if Logic is rebuilt from the ground up with a new modern fully 64-bit architecture like Final Cut Studio. Go Apple, go Logic... here's to Logic 10...

i remember when apple bought logic. the PC version was immediately discontinued. it was sad and upsetting, and really did not endear apple to me at all.

Then you know how Mac users felt for over a decade.

Bungie being a prime example.

Microsoft, Adobe, etc.

Microsoft bought that 3D modeling program ( darn, just forgot the name), which was an industry standard, because it wasn't available for NT, and discontinued all other of the OS versions. Once they became the established OS for 3D design, they sold the program.

Boy I hope this is good news and that Logic 10 will be on the way. Logic 9 while solid could be improved. It takes me back to the old Opcode days where the updates just faded away and then Vision/Studio Vision were gone. I really hope this is a harbinger of further development for Logic. We will have to see if Logic is rebuilt from the ground up with a new modern fully 64-bit architecture like Final Cut Studio. Go Apple, go Logic... here's to Logic 10...

What would be your most requested features for Logic? I've been using Logic for around 5 years. I switched to Ableton for a while, but that felt so awkward workflow wise so I have switched back. The realtime tempo changes are Live's best feature, but the rest of it feels shonky IMO.

Microsoft bought that 3D modeling program ( darn, just forgot the name), which was an industry standard, because it wasn't available for NT, and discontinued all other of the OS versions. Once they became the established OS for 3D design, they sold the program.

Microsoft bought Softimage in 1994, which made software that competed with Alias Maya. MS sold Softimage to Avid who later sold it to Autodesk (who also now own Alias).

I purchased some Redmatica software a couple of years ago when working with some EXS sampled instruments. It was decent software but I found their support a bit lacking when I needed it. I really hope some of their tech gets rolled into Logic.

Sadly, I never got around to using their Autosampler app when I initially purchased it and my version is pretty much obsolete unless I install an older OS version. I wanted to upgrade but I felt their upgrade price was a bit too expensive for something I would only use a handful of times to sample some hardware instruments I have lying around.

Redmatica's software is pretty much all geared around working with sampled instruments in relation to Logic and Garageband software so there's pretty much no threat of Apple buying them to keep them from working with other companies or software platforms; this is a talent/IP acquisition.

bettercitizens wrote:

Boy I hope this is good news and that Logic 10 will be on the way. Logic 9 while solid could be improved. It takes me back to the old Opcode days where the updates just faded away and then Vision/Studio Vision were gone. I really hope this is a harbinger of further development for Logic. We will have to see if Logic is rebuilt from the ground up with a new modern fully 64-bit architecture like Final Cut Studio. Go Apple, go Logic... here's to Logic 10...

As I understand it, Logic already supports a full 64-bit workflow (with a 32-bit bridge for plug-ins). I've experimented with it's 64-bit mode but had to go back to 32-bit mode as the application doesn't allow to set this on a per project basis and I have a lot of legacy projects. They will open in 64-bit mode but 32-bit plugin settings are frozen and can't have their settings saved. Anyway, the situation with Logic is a bit different than with with Final Cut so I doubt a full redesign/reimagination is coming. I expect a bit more of the environment will be abstracted away in further revisions but Logic is pretty great in where it is now with a few minor annoyances like the lack of a Solo-In-Place feature or easier time/pitch shifting tools.

The purchase likely buys Apple some fresh talent for Logic and GarageBand.

So Foresman - Apple is going to spend millions of dolalrs just to hire audio programmers ?

WTF !

Thank you ever so much for adding your personal opinion into the "reporting" - if you can call it reporting.

Leave your opinion out -you have no frakkin clue what APple plans on doing with it - so don't mix your thoughts in as if it's the opinion of ARS and that is where Apple is leaning. Amazing how you even manage to screw up something as simple as reporting on the purchase of a company. For all you know Apple bought them because Tim Cook thinks the inhouse chef makes good coffee.

bettercitizens wrote:

Boy I hope this is good news and that Logic 10 will be on the way. Logic 9 while solid could be improved. It takes me back to the old Opcode days where the updates just faded away and then Vision/Studio Vision were gone. I really hope this is a harbinger of further development for Logic. We will have to see if Logic is rebuilt from the ground up with a new modern fully 64-bit architecture like Final Cut Studio. Go Apple, go Logic... here's to Logic 10...

Don't get your hopes up dude - remember what they did with Final Cut.

huxley wrote:

melgross wrote:

Microsoft bought that 3D modeling program ( darn, just forgot the name), which was an industry standard, because it wasn't available for NT, and discontinued all other of the OS versions. Once they became the established OS for 3D design, they sold the program.

Microsoft bought Softimage in 1994, which made software that competed with Alias Maya. MS sold Softimage to Avid who later sold it to Autodesk (who also now own Alias).

But I imagine there is some development work to integrating a new material and its processes into a huge high volume production line like Apple's stuff currently has. I don't think they bought it solely to sit on it and keep it from others.